Another day, another unexploded ordnance

The S.F. Examiner.com has an article about a World War II-era unexploded bomb that was uncovered at a construction site in Toyama. The site was a former elementary school.

During the disposal work some phosphorus from a bomb ignited and caused an intense fire that burned for many hours. According to Japanese television news broadcasts on June 26th, the JGSDF team was still conducting bomb disposal work at the site. Toyama city has cancelled the construction project until it can be confirmed that there are no more unexploded bombs buried in the area. (Link)

This follows only two weeks after a sea mine that was found in the waters off Kobe.

It makes you wonder how dangerous it must have been in postwar Japan, with all of those unexploded bombs lying around. Even if you have a dud rate of one percent–which may be a bit optimistic–that would still amount to thousands of aerial bombs, artillery shells, and sea mines.

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A contributor and editor at the blog War Is Boring, Kyle Mizokami started Japan Security Watch in 2010 to further understand Japan's defenses and security policy.
Kyle Mizokami has 596 post(s) on Japan Security Watch